1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an improved computing system. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a personal on-demand media streaming system and method.
2. Description of Related Art
The ability to gain access to various media types via the Internet has made it more prevalent in our society to use the digital medium as a mechanism for distributing media. For example, the Internet is used as a medium over which video, audio, graphical, and textual data are transmitted from source devices to destination devices.
One area where the use of the Internet is most prevalent, and most troublesome, is the transmission of music as audio data from a source device to one or more destination devices. The use of MP3 technology has allowed users to convert their audio recordings to a digital format that is easily transferable over the Internet. MP3 is an audio compression technology that is part of the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 specifications. Developed in Germany in 1991 by the Fraunhofer Institute, MP3 uses perceptual audio coding to compress compact disc (CD) quality sound by a factor of 12, while providing almost the same fidelity. MP3 music files are played via software or a physical player that cables to the PC for transfer.
MP3 has made it feasible to download quality audio from the Internet very quickly, causing it to become a worldwide auditioning system for new musicians and labels. Established bands post sample tracks from new albums to encourage CD sales, and new bands post their music on MP3 sites in order to develop an audience. Unfortunately, however, MP3 has also allowed users to create digital versions of copyrighted works and distribute them to users who have not actually paid for the right to own or use the copyrighted work.
Similar compression techniques have been developed for other types of media as well. Movies, which may be in a DVD format, for example, may be converted to one or more compressed data files in an AVI format. Similarly, pictures may be distributed digitally in a compressed form, such as JPEG. All of these various methods of compressing media into data files that are of a size that is easily accessible over the Internet have increased the use of the Internet as a media source.
Today, many people have a large archive of media of various types, e.g., CDs, DVDs, digital pictures, and the like. However, in order to gain access to the content on this media, the person must have the physical copy of the media available to them at their current location. This may be a problem when a person has a large media library and wishes to have access to all of the media when away from the location where the media library is normally stored. For example, if a person has a library of 300 compact discs having music and other audio files thereon, and the person wishes to have access to all 300 compact discs from his work location, the person is required to bring all 300 compact discs to the work location in order to have access to them. In other words, physical access is required and the size of the library makes physical access impractical.
Some attempts have been made to alleviate this problem by providing third party source solutions. For example, the web site My.MP3.com provided a service by which a user may obtain access to a portion of a the third party service provider's library of MP3 files once the user proved that they had actually purchased a copy of the CD having the audio recording associated with the MP3 to which access is desired. This allowed a user to download the MP3 to any client computer.
The problem with this solution is that the user was forced to access the third party service provider's library of MP3s and did not actually have access to his/her own library of audio recordings. Thus, there was no assurance that a particular audio recording in the user's audio recording library would also be in the library of MP3s of the third party service provider. Moreover, the user did not have control over the use of the MP3s but was rather subject to the requirements and whims of the third party service provider, i.e. the user may have to pay for access to the MP3, the MP3 may be available one day but then not be available at a later time, and the like. In addition, the quality of the MP3 version of the audio recording could not be controlled by the user and was entirely up to the third party service provider. Moreover, a third party service provider may subject the user to unwanted advertisements and may collect information about the user's access to media files for use by other organizations without the user's knowledge.
The desire of users to have access to their own personal libraries of media from a variety of different locations is ever increasing in our entertainment based society. Therefore, it would be beneficial to have a method and system for providing on-demand media streaming from a user's own library to a user's receiving device so that the user may access his/her own library of media from a location remote from the location of the user's media library.